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December 1, 2012

Edmund Campion - a Scarlet Pimpernel!

Edmund Campion

Edmund Campion is remembered December 1st on the Christian Calendar. He reminds me of the movie and book: The Scarlet Pimpernel
(the BBC version is the best and closest to the book). Though born of a
protestant printer-bookseller in London in 1540, he became a Jesuit and
a secret agent for the Faith.

I love history. I love books. I've
read stories where old homes in England had cubbyholes called "priest
holes". Campion's story makes me literate of these priest holes.

With
the introduction of Protestantism, some rulers were seeing
possibilities of separating from the Pope. The Church ruled. Monarch
Henry VIII was the first to start a new church. What happened for
probably a century is that the religion followed the ruler. Differing
beliefs could not coexist for quite some time. The last Catholic monarch
of England is what history calls Bloody Mary, and her successor,
protestant Good Queen Bess. Lots of deaths swinging from protestants
killing catholics and then vice versa and back again.

Campion was
in Elizabeth's reign and he was constantly changing his name and
apparel. Like once he was disguised as a jewel merchant. He was the
object of a year long manhunt, all the while ministering to catholics in
hiding and publishing 'underground' pamphlets. Queen Elizabeth liked
him and tried to dissuade him, making him offers. But he was the 1st of
hundreds who were hanged, drawn, and quartered for adhering to their
religious beliefs.